


War Games (Alternatively Titled: Why You Should Never Lend James Bond Your DVDs)

by Bluebell_Flames



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 007, Fandom Allusions & Cliches & References, M/M, Mission Fic, Swearing, War Gaming, post Skyfall, romania - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:11:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluebell_Flames/pseuds/Bluebell_Flames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Bond is in trouble (as usual), M is annoyed (also as usual) and Q cannot fathom how Bond knows that his ringtone is the TARDIS materialisation sound (definitely unusual).</p>
            </blockquote>





	War Games (Alternatively Titled: Why You Should Never Lend James Bond Your DVDs)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [So1said](https://archiveofourown.org/users/So1said/gifts).



> So1Said once told me she’d like some Bond/Q birthday fic, and so here is the finished result! Big thanks to my beta [sherbet_lemon_owl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sherbet_lemon_owl) for doing a great job on this fic (and reminding me to use a thesaurus!)
> 
> My knowledge of Romania and Bucharest is very limited so apologies for any inaccuracies. Dragomir was chosen as the operation name as Anastase Dragomir was a Romanian scientist who invented an early version of the ejector seat, which is pretty appropriate for Bond! Dragomir also fittingly means “He who cares about peace”

From under a cocoon of bed covers, the muffled sounds of the TARDIS materialisation noise could be heard. With a groan Q blindly reached over to grab his personal phone, his work one of course having a slightly more appropriate ringtone (God Save the Queen, if you were wondering). Perching his glasses on top of his nose he read the time, 05:19, and:

_INCOMING CALL: UNKNOWN NUMBER_

Puzzling. He knew for a fact that his personal number was restricted to a couple of friends from university (who only called to make sure he was still alive), a handful of the members from the local war games club (who were still pissed off at his unbeaten game streak) and his (rather eccentric) landlord. His brain not awake enough to determine any other reason not to answer, he pressed the ‘accept call’ button.

“Do you enjoy listening to that bloody _Doctor Who_ ringtone so much? Someone could be dying on the end of the line!”

“Bond?” Q scrambled out of bed, blanket still shrouding him, wondering which out of the hundred questions that had just popped into his head he should ask first, 

“How do you know my ringtone?” 

The most important question, obviously.

“Does it bloody matter? I’m in a situation here...”

“I guessed as such by your attempts to entice me into conversation, at this time in the morning, with a joke. You require my assistance immediately, I presume?” Definitely time to put the kettle on, thought Q as he hurried through to his kitchen.

A muffled grunt came down the phone line, along with the rather more worrying noise of gunfire and...

“Was that a horse braying?”

“Q, get up a satellite image of Bucharest city centre, NOW” 

“Hold your horse’s agent.” another audible groan was heard from Bond as Q chuckled, tucking the phone under his arm and reaching over to type the security code of the door to his home office. Once the green light bleeped him in, Q flicked the switches of all three monitors and woke his home computer system out of hibernation. It wasn’t as fancy as the state-of-the-art facilities in MI6, but here Q could have his comfy leather chair and Dalek posters without M complaining.

“Real time satellite images from Romania should be up in a second. 007 what is going on? The exchange was set to take place tomor-” Suddenly everything became a bit clearer to Q’s slowly waking brain. “You changed the exchange day didn’t you?”

The silence at the end of the line was _very_ reassuring.

“Have you told your handler, or M?”

“Handler’s dead.” Bond said bluntly, “Which is why I rearranged the exchange for today, otherwise my corpse would be joining him” 

Shit. Quite a serious situation then. Q bit his lip nervously, then quickly hit speed dial on his work phone - it only took one ring before it was picked up.

“Situation?” M was always more blunt than usual before 6am.

“It’s 007, sir. The handler on Operation Dragomir in Bucharest is down - the exchange and Bond have been compromised.”

“Dammit. Are you in contact with him now?” 

“Yes sir.”

“Tell him he’d better have managed to save the prototype otherwise he’ll have NATO to answer to as well as me. I’m on my way to HQ now. Keep me informed.” The line went dead. Q breathed out in relief, counting himself lucky that M wasn’t awake enough to shout at him, well not yet anyway. A bleeping noise from his computer brought Q back to the present and he resumed navigating through satellite images.

“Bond what’s your current location? By the way M is more than a little annoyed with you right now; he threatened you with NATO this time...”

Bond huffed, obviously unamused “I passed the Financial Plaza 5 minutes ago, heading west, down the back streets. And when isn’t M pissed off with me?”

“Mmm” Q adjusted the keyboard, agreeing. Bond and Mallory didn’t see eye to eye about many details of the mission. They could work together on a professional basis but it was obvious that Bond didn’t trust M.

Then again, Bond never trusts anyone - probably why he’s still alive, thought Q, his fingers frantically navigating the zoom function and managing to locate the right map.

“007, I have your coordinates; take the next two turnings on your left. Dare I ask how many tails?”

“Four. Actually...” Bond’s voice was distorted, but back in his flat in London, Q could still hear the gunshots.

“Make that three, at least. Romanian mob, not pretty fellows either”

Despite the situation, Q chuckled, “Mob bosses don’t usually keep up with the trends of fashion, Bond.”

There was definitely a snort at the end of the line “Speak for yourself Quartermaster” Q glanced down at his stripped pyjamas, blushing slightly, even though there was no possible way Bond could see him (Q hoped anyway; Bond was capable of pretty much _anything_...).

“How likely is it that you can get an extraction team out here?” asked Bond breathlessly. 

“You know only M can authorise an extraction” grumbled Q “And you’re asking for one in Bucharest, after your handler’s been killed, highly decreasing the statistical likliho-“

“I’ll take that as a no then.” 

“I’ll agree with you on that. Now, I need update on your location...”

*****

After some juggling, Q managed to relay Bond’s coordinates to HQ, ring M with an update (“No I have no idea whether 007 has offended any of the locals, M. Just presume he has...”) and poured himself a cup of earl grey tea. 

And Bond was still very much alive when he returned to his computer. Not bad for 05:53 on a Friday morning.

“Surely there has to be a better hiding place in the city than behind a disused restaurant” Bond whispered. All Q could hear was Bond’s body gently scrapping against the building, as he stirred his tea, but he presumed he’d managed to locate the derelict _cafenea_ he’d found thanks to the satellite images.

“I’m running this operation almost blind 007” scorned Q, his keyboard bearing the brunt of his frustration. “I am not currently in HQ. There is only so much my home system is capable of.”

Bond chuckled “You’re fooling no one Q, I bet you’ve got quite a few extr-” the phone line crackled and the distant sounds of several angry voices filled Q’s apartment. He didn’t have to understand Romanian to get the gist of their message.

A sickening crunch, along with a wail of pain and more Romanian curses burst in Q’s ear. Q grimaced, taking a sip of earl grey, trying not to dwell on exactly which bones Bond had just shattered. 

He waited for Bond to respond.

Nothing.

“007? Come in.” 

Q was rewarded with the sounds of someone scrabbling up and cursing – thankfully in English.

“Not to worry Quartermaster. My earpiece got knocked off, but another bastard’s down...” Back in London, Q breathed out in relief, ignoring the voice in his head notifying him that another body meant more paperwork.

“Okay 007, your best chance of getting extracted is if you make it across the border into Bulgaria, ideally if you can get to Sofia then-”

“Bloody hell Q! That’s got to be about 400km away!”

“363, give or take” Q replied, not being able to resist correcting him. “You could make it in about 4 days by foot; we have a few agents in Sofia who could meet you-”

“Q, there is no time. I need to be out of Romania, and ideally mainland Europe, _now_! The situation is more complex than just the Romanians...”

Q groaned, “Please don’t tell me the Russians are involved again.”

“Okay then, I won’t tell you.” Q could hear the grin all the way from Romania. Sighing, he flicked through more satellite images, and tapped a few commands into his home system.

“Bond, I may have found a solution,” Q said, squinting at his monitor, “if you can make it to the Dâmbovița river, there’s a chance you could get boat that takes you all the way onto the Danube river and out to sea. As long as you’re not followed of course.”

“Not being followed is one of my specialties, Q.”

“Yes along with never challenging orders and not going AWOL on missions” Q replied, rolling his eyes.  
Bond’s answering laugh was drowned out by the sound of busy traffic, his voice echoing slightly around Q’s office, giving the illusion Bond was in the very same room. 

Q did not check over his shoulder to see, and definitely didn’t check twice. 

Shaking himself back to reality, Q made some quick calculations: Bond was surely running low on energy, therefore more likely to be tired and make a mistake, ultimately endangering both him and the prototype. Based on previous missions, 007 running low on energy had a 47% chance of serious injury and a 78% likelihood of capture or mission failure.

Not ideal outcomes. And certainly not ones that would go down well in the post mission report thought Q.

“007, you need to get out of the suburbs and head towards the river.” 

“Well it’s a good job I know _exactly_ where I’m running so I can find this river then”

Apparently lacking in energy did nothing to decrease Bond’s sarcasm levels.

“I think it might be time for a new tactic Quartermaster, I’ll be back in a sec-” 

“007! What are you-” Q stuttered. His phone flashed:

_CALL DISCONNECTED_

“Shit. What are you doing Bond?” Q huffed to the, now painfully silent, room. He drummed the desk nervously. Bond’s rather unorthodox ideas, such as cutting communication, had around a 51% chance of producing favourably results, depending on what you defined ‘favourable’ as...

The TARDIS materialisation noise interrupted Q’s thoughts. This time there was no hesitation as he accepted the call.

“007, why did you cease communication?”

“I needed to see the river, so I’m taking a short cut” wheezed Bond, “which means going via the rooftops”

“Excuse me?”

“I hope MI6 are on good terms with the Romanian ambassador this week,” continued Bond, “He might need his windows cleaning in a minute...”

Q flinched as the sounds of fist fighting, or more accurately jaw breaking, resonated back in his apartment. 

“007,” began Q, pausing as Bond landed what sounded like the crunch of a broken nose to another assailant, “I certainly do not envy you when you return to the UK. I can’t see M being pleased to having to personally apologise to the Romanian ambassador.”

There was no reply from Bond, apart from the unmistakeable sound of shattering glass.

Q didn’t even bother to ask what happened, “Are you injured 007?” 

“Barely a scratch.” Bond’s voice was ragged, “Though if M wants this prototype on British soil, he’s going to have to kiss the entire Romanian government’s...”

Q hoped his eye roll translated across the phone, “At this point 007, just stay alive – though M may argue that the prototype has more value.”

After a few minutes of silence, wherein Q debated whether to try and get some CCTV footage from Bucharest on his screen, a whisper emitted from his handset,

“Staying alive might be difficult...”

“Pardon?” Q shook himself. Bond’s ego never allowed him to admit his difficulties. “Bond, what is your situation?”

“Pretty dire,” panted Bond. Gosh, thought Q, Bond was obviously was far more injured than he’d let on. “Unless I turn into _Iron Man_ in the next minute, I’m looking at the wrong end of a Glock or a hundred foot drop.”

Shit. Or more accurately, double shit. There was no denying that Bond was telling the truth, his breathing had slowed, so wasn’t running over rooftops anymore and the distinct sound of approaching footsteps were clear to be heard. Q felt choked, and he was the one wrapped in a blanket safe in London.

“Bond, I hope you have a plan. My resources are limited, but tell me what you need and I will make it happen.” Q squared his jaw and resisted the urge to throw his sudoku mug across the room. He wasn’t trained to be a handler or even a hostage negotiator, for goodness sake! Nevertheless, he was determined to help Bond out in any way possible. 

Hacking into NATO to send a recovery task force was starting to look like an attractive option.

“How many could you take down, Bond?”

“Well...” Pause. Q hoped he was working out how to disarm the assailants rather than counting them, “Perhaps two, if not all of them have guns – oh and that’s out of six by the way.”

There was no point even calculating the percentages for this one. Q’s fingers flew across the keyboard, trying to find something, anything that could be used as a solution that didn’t involve jumping into the line of fire. “Bond, if you tell me which building you’re on, I can get up the schematics and-”

“Q,” Bond cut in resignedly “You’re not my handler, though you’d be a bloody good one, I’m going to take a trip down.”

“Bond, that’s suicide. You’d be better off negotiating!”

“Trust me Q, these types of fellows don’t do negotiation. I’m better off doing a Sherlock Holmes.”

Q cursed ever lending Bond his _Sherlock_ DVD collection. “Bond, please don’t jump. Think of M’s reaction, think of the lives that will be ultimately lost if the prototype is lost and... you still owe me one for getting out of the London underground alive.” Q begged

“Sorry Quartermaster.” Bond sounded genuinely sincere, “If it’s any consolation Benjamin, my union jack nodding dog now belongs to you.”

The clatter of an earpiece falling to the ground was just audible over the sound of gunfire and Q’s cry of anguish.

*****

3 months later

Q didn’t really feel like going into headquarters much these days; joining MI6 and saving the world was only fun if, well, you saved the world. The movie industry never really showed what happens all those times missions go wrong and people die, and they certainly don’t show the sheer mountains of paper work, thought Q as he unlocked the door to his apartment and crashed on the leather sofa.

Still, the investigation into Operation Dragomir had cleared Q of any major wrongdoing, ultimately blaming Bond for the mission failure. Q had managed to cling onto his job too, which was something. 

It didn’t feel much of a victory though.

It wasn’t as if Bond was special, thought Q, stretching out on his sofa with a sigh. He could barely be called a work colleague as Bond usually avoided HQ like the plague. MI6 operatives are trained not to form attachments; makes it easier to get the job done. Q could count his friends on his fingers alone, he got to seven – but it took him a second to realise that he’d counted Bond amongst them. 

Q cursed. He’d worked with several agents, 003 and 008 mainly, but he barely thought about them beyond “agents” and definitely didn’t count them as friends. Maybe it was due to everything that happened with Skyfall, or maybe lending _Sherlock_ and _Avengers_ DVDs to a very bored agent on enforced recovery leave creates a certain bond. Working with an agent on three life or death missions in a row, probably brings you closer to a person whatever the consequences, sighed Q miserably. 

He was not going to blame himself for this all over again - Q willed his internal monologue to shut up and leaned over to the TV remote. _Iron Man_ was usually a good go-to comfort film (the protagonist being a genius, becoming a superhero then showing the world that geeks triumph? Definitely a winning film in Q’s mind). Slight problem. The disc was still in Bond’s Chelsea town house, Q having lent it to him months ago and not being able to bring himself to go over the other side of London and collect it.

Sighing, Q wondered if it was worth going to the visit the National Gallery for the second time this week when the TARDIS materialisation noise blared throughout his apartment. Scrambling to his feet, Q grabbed the phone, shaking his head clear of the last time he received a message and nervously glanced at the screen,

_INBOX (1) READ MESSAGE?_

Q hovered over the ‘accept’ key for a full 30 seconds before clicking:

_COMING TO WAR GAMES FOR THE TOURNAMENT TONIGHT? IT’S BEEN A WHILE BENJAMIN._

After re-reading the message three times, Q let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. He had no reason not to go along; it would hopefully take his mind off things and he hadn’t exactly been a great friend to the guys down at the club recently, time to make amends. 

Pulling on his coat, it hit him again that Bond was dead. It wouldn’t have been Bond contacting him; it just wasn’t logical or possible. Glancing at his phone, Q debated changing the TARDIS ringtone to prevent further panic attacks. But there still so many unanswered questions that were holding him back from doing it.

Mainly, how did Bond know his real name was Benjamin?

*****

Q arrived only a little late to the war gaming club; several members recognised him and dragged him over to the main table, with much fanfare.

“Anything new happening since I last came down?” asked Q, setting up his legion of figures (a militarised roboid army complete with armoured tanks).

“Yeah, got a new chap here who was close to beating your all time high score last week” buzzed a guy to Q’s left, “Quite the tactician, you’ve gotta play against him at some point tonight...” 

The crowd around Q parted to reveal the last person Q expected to see, 

“Hello Benjamin, it’s been a while.”

“Bond?” 

Casually standing next to his own impressive set of figurines, 007 stared directly back at him, looking almost normal apart from his eyes which were saying several things at once: ‘don’t blow my cover’, ‘I am so sorry’ and most importantly, a flicker of ‘I am pleased to see you’.

“You guys know each other?” piped up another member (‘Andy’ Q’s stunned brain helpfully supplied)

Bond drew his eyes away from Q (who was hastily covered up his deer-in-the-headlights expression), “We’ve worked together before; I’d trust Benjamin here with however much life I have left.” He said simply, daring another look at Q who nodded, still rather tongue-tied.

As Andy moved away, Q’s legs finally unfroze and he went to stand next to Bond; the full life living, breathing not-at-all-dead Bond.

“I didn’t realise your trip to Bucharest was successful...” Q muttered, not waiting for Bond’s explanation of events.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a success,” Bond for the first time looked awkward, “M can’t have been happy paying for my funeral either...”

Q scoffed “I think ‘beyond livid’ would be an understatement of how M felt the whole operation went.”

“Is that how you feel?” countered Bond. Q turned away, pondering whether he actually felt angry about the whole ordeal. In truth, Q reflected, he was more caught up in blaming himself rather than being angry. 

And definitely more upset than he ever would admit.

“No it’s not” Q answered sincerely, and Bond’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “How did you find out my name? And why... how are you even here?” Q asked in a rush, trying to find the answers in Bond’s unreadable facial expression.

Bond fiddled with one of the figurines on the table and didn’t respond for a while, “I decided I’d had enough of being shot at, being part of the world’s bloody war games. If I’m going to play any war games from now on, it’s going to be with Star Trek figures in a dingy hall on the wrong side of the Thames...”

“There is nothing wrong with being on the south side of the river!” protested Q, but he could feel himself slowly grinning.

“You keep telling yourself that Benjamin” said Bond clapping him on the shoulder, and beginning to move away, until he remembered something, “Also you may want to ask your friends here to change their club website - it’s practically like a shrine to you.”

Q laughed, feeling at astonishingly at ease, and continued to set up his army of roboids. Bond, or should he now say ‘James’, owed him an easy win in the tournament - as well as a fair few DVDs.


End file.
